An easy way to decide who plays in the BCS title game

It's extremely simple. So simple that even people who espouse other approaches seem to implicitly accept its logic. Are you ready? Don't zone out, it's really short. Here goes: the two best teams should play in the championship game.

Got it? How about one more time: the two best teams should play in the championship game.

Nothing else matters. If someone puts a gun to your head and asks you to name the two best teams, the two teams you would take over any others on a neutral field, those two teams are the ones that should play in that game. Like I said, it's easy. Nevertheless, people find ways to screw it up, and are doing so rampantly as we approach the end of the 2011 season.

Why? Alabama. Everything is coming to a head here. Circumstances have forced Bama back to the top of the pile of one loss teams and a lot of people are upset. Oklahoma State just lost to a 26 point underdog. Oklahoma lost to an even bigger dog at home. Oregon and Alabama both lost to the same opponent, but Bama lost in overtime whereas Oregon was beaten soundly. Arkansas lost to Bama and is likely stuck in third place in the SEC West. An undefeated Houston team simply would not have the strength of schedule to justify inclusion.

So the natural response is to try and invent a bunch of arbitrary rules to keep the clear second best team out of the title game. If, after the next couple of weeks it becomes even clearer that Alabama is the second best team in America, it would be a damn shame if they were denied their rightful opportunity to play for a championship.

On Penn State

Voluminous ink has been spilled on this topic so I will stick to loosely organized observations without setting out the basic facts. McQueary is going to be the focal point of much of this, and his behavior is quite difficult to sort through, and I don't think it will be possible to simply blame the administrators for failing to act on detailed reports provided by him. McQueary is a part of the whole rotten system there and the more I think about it, the more I find it plausible that he either sugar coated his story or was nudged into downplaying what he saw. This is not to say that the administrators behaved correctly, merely that McQueary possibly didn't tell them the graphic details that he revealed to the grand jury.

Then there's the recent development of McQueary claiming in an email or some other medium that he actually did contact the police. To me this smells like a response to public criticism. It smells like an attempt by McQueary to retell history and to defend his actions. Just now I read a report that the police have no record of any report by McQueary or anyone else. So just what the hell was McQueary talking about?

At any rate, I'm sure all of the participants in this drama have lawyers smartly telling them to shut the fuck up in no uncertain terms, and already two of the critical figures have made public statements. Sandusky, for his part, gave a cryptic media interview via telephone that did nothing to help his case. Years from now when this thing is mostly sorted out I am confident that writers approaching the topic will find much symbolism and significance in that interview, none of it flattering to Sandusky or Penn State University.

And with Paterno, I'm not even sure what to say.

Mr. SEC runs down expansion candidates

This is one of the better treatments of the topic I've seen. Pay attention to the criteria, and note that these are averages of ranks so lower scores are better.

Will Mizzou get enough votes?

Reports are now that a vote by the SEC to extend an invitation to Mizzou has failed. The fallback for Mizzou would be a 10 team Big 12 with TCU replacing A&M. The fallback for the SEC is unknown, and this report shows that the problem of finding an acceptable 14th school is very real. Again, Mike Slive's "16 schools in 15 minutes" throwaway line comes to mind.

TSK speculates about which schools want Mizzou to join. Presumably A&M does not yet have a vote, and the article mentions that Alabama is against, and Auburn is for the addition. That means at least 3 or 4 schools are against the move, and it's quite hard to say which ones would be involved. Are some of the East schools afraid to play Auburn every year? Would they rather have WVU? Are some of the West schools afraid to open their recruiting grounds to Missouri?

Mizzou would be one of the stronger academic institutions in the SEC, so it is unlikely that schools like Florida, Vandy, and Kentucky would object on those grounds. I guess the knocks against them are twofold: first, their presence would disrupt existing rivalries and it would be cleaner to just add a school to the east side of the conference, and secondly they are not a top tier addition. They are merely adequate. They lack the muscle of A&M in the lucrative Texas market, and they lack the football brand name of a school like Oklahoma, Florida State, or Virginia Tech. Nevertheless, they may yet be invited. If no ACC schools will leave and if WVU is off the table, options are extremely limited at this point.

Eight Big 12 members vote to grant media rights

Missouri abstained. This comes today as there are reports that TCU has been invited to join the Big 12. Observers have pointed to the TV rights grant as the only way to save the Big 12. That process is happening right now, and with a couple of good additions the Big 12 could easily survive at least into the near future. Such a grant of rights would make departures by members impossible, and would end all rumors of Texas, Oklahoma or anybody else leaving the conference. Realignment rumors will shift to the Big East, which either needs to quickly expand, or which could cease to exist as a football conference, which has implications for Notre Dame as well, but that is a discussion for another time.

TCU is an interesting case because I expected them to uphold their promise to join the Big East even in the face of a Big 12 invite, but since Pitt and Syracuse have left the future of the Big East football conference in doubt, TCU may have to rethink their decision. The Big 12 is throwing them a life raft. They are no longer stuck joining the sinking ship that is the Big East. Even if the Big East somehow survives, it might not be able to guarantee BCS AQ status into the future, and that is a serious consideration for a school like TCU that wants access to an automatic bid.

The Big 12 is widely expected to look at BYU as a potential expansion partner, and if Missouri leaves, TCU joins, and BYU joins the Big 12 is back up to an even 10 teams and appears to be in solid shape going forward, but the Big East should be worried.

Thoughts on the Arkansas - A&M game

Coaches face a difficult optimization problem every day in that they have to decide how complex they wish to make things for their players. A more complex scheme has two major downsides: it is harder to teach, and it can confuse your players during the game. However, there is a possible big reward: outsmarting the other team.

In the A&M game, we saw the benefits of the opposite approach in the second half. Petrino simplified the pass protection calls for the offense and got a lot more productivity out of a simpler scheme. Credit the coaching staff for making the adjustment, but I certainly wonder if they were overwhelming the green Arkansas offensive line with too much complexity to begin with. Perhaps they eventually need to learn the more elaborate protections no matter what, so it makes sense to teach them and run them even if there are struggles. Nobody said being a head coach is easy.

If those protections had any downsides, the A&M coaching staff certainly didn't exploit them. Other reports show that the defense similarly changed to a different, simpler front that they ran in the first year or two of Petrino's tenure. That adjustment also paid big dividends.

Beyond that, I'd have to say that Broderick Green's return from the ACL injury was shockingly quick and it was good to see him in the game. The record setting performances by Tyler Wilson and Jarius Wright have drawn national attention. Going forward this team still has a lot of potential but something like 10 starters including multiple team captains have suffered meaningful injuries and that can be hard to overcome in the long run. It is certainly a good thing to beat A&M, but in the exuberance of that comeback it's easy to forget that the Hogs were absolutely torched in the first half, giving up 35 points in ugly fashion. It's also worth noting that they put up 20 first half points, a good output against a ranked team.

Auburn is next, and since I will be at that game in person I certainly hope for a win. Should be a shootout either way.

So where are we with that Missouri thing right now?

The Missouri Board of Curators, their oddly named board of trustees (apparently this is unique among American universities), will meet later this week to discuss changing athletic conferences. We might know more after that meeting. I don't have a read on what they might do. Frank the Tank has suggested that Missouri to the SEC will eventually happen. Perhaps by tomorrow evening we will know more.

SEC Expansion Candidates

Matt Hinton has provided a more comprehensive treatment of expansion candidates here.

Dan Wetzel's advocacy for TCU stands alongside his irrational hatred of the BCS as knocks against him as a sports writer. I get that writers benefit from taking forceful controversial positions in public, but I would wager that TCU is so far from being on the table as an expansion candidate that they are effectively irrelevant.

Even ignoring that reality, do they make sense in a vacuum? They are a borderline candidate at best. They are a small private school that happens to have had a good run in football. They don't fit the profile of an SEC school. Their stadium has only 50,000 seats after a significant expansion. Only Vanderbilt has a smaller football stadium in the SEC. Every SEC school has a larger student body than TCU, and most of them are more than twice as large. Most of their football success is recent. Between 1960 and 1998 they only went to 3 bowl games.

West Virginia, on the other hand, is a public flagship university with great tradition in football and basketball, but they may already be out of the picture. If that's the case, and if no ACC schools are willing to leave their conference, the SEC has limited choices for its 14th member and the chances of an interim era with 13 members increases.

As the article suggests, Missouri is still out there, but their departure might prevent a deal to save the Big 12. Would they pull the trigger on that? They certainly appear to covet SEC membership as a golden ticket to future relevance, and as an opportunity that they may not ever see again, but if they leave the Big 12 and all hell breaks loose, they will take some of the blame.

It's Official: Texas A&M will join the SEC

The search is now on for the 14th member. If reports of the remaining 9 Big 12 members handcuffing themselves together are true, Missouri is off the table and armageddon might be averted. It's looking increasingly like Florida State would be the only ACC team to consider an invitation to the SEC. That takes Virginia Tech, NC State, and even Maryland off the table. Add Clemson and WVU to FSU and you have a list of 3 solid candidates that could be plugged into the SEC-E to create two seven team divisions.

Keep in mind that the Big 10 played with 11 teams for several years, so it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that the SEC would go with 13 teams for a year or more rather than take a sub-optimal expansion candidate.

West Virginia Makes a Lot of Sense for the SEC

Spencer Hall makes the argument more colorfully than I can, but the culture argument for adding WVU to the SEC resonates with me. They are a good basketball school, are almost certainly available, and would be a good fit with the SEC. The have that same chip on their shoulder as a small state that many SEC schools share. Despite not being a marquee academic name they are still the flagship school in their state and that counts for something. They fit the profile.

Missouri, on the other hand, is a midwestern school in a pro sports state. They are not the biggest thing in any media market except perhaps for their immediate vicinity. Academically they bring a lot to the table, and are a large flagship school. Not a bad addition, but the Big 10 passed on them for a reason, and they passed on them for a more football crazed school from a smaller state. The SEC should do the same.

More on "Inevitable Superconferences" - The Pac 12 stands pat

SI is reporting today that the Pac 12 has decided not to expand in the current round. I like the idea of giving the current twelve team structure some time to jell. It takes a lot of time for new additions to really feel like a part of the conference and for meaningful rivalries to develop. I am an Arkansas fan and there are still people in the fan base who long for the Southwest Conference days. Actual paid sports writers have speculated that Arkansas might leave the SEC to join the Big 12. Arkansas, it should be noted, has been in the SEC for a mere twenty years.

I'm not sure how much of this is driven by the Pac 12's voting structure. At least when it had 10 members, expansion required a unanimous vote. This argument was used against the inclusion of BYU, a very conservative religious school likely to raise objections from Stanford and Berkeley. I assume they still have a unanimous voting requirement and it is quite likely that at least one member objected to expanding beyond 12 teams.

Notably this also works against reports that have identified Missouri as the SEC's next expansion target. If the Big 12 can hold onto its current 9 members and quickly add a 10th, it could very well survive and Missouri would have no need to move. Call this Scenario 1.

Scenario 2 sees Oklahoma as still desiring to leave the conference, and with the Pac 12 off the table the SEC is a strong option. The Big 12 implodes, current members find homes where they can, and the remnants probably merge with the Big East.

Thoughts on LSU vs. Mississippi State

LSU's defense is the big story from this game. MSU has a pretty good offense, and it was absolutely stumped.

The tone was set with the first or one of the first plays of the game, when MSU ran a simple option play which was quickly snuffed out. Having only seen the play once, my guess is that they were in a cover zero or cover 1 look and had a man assigned to both the QB and the pitch man. I didn't see MSU run another conventional pitch option play during the game.

It really felt like watching an NFL defense. They were able to consistently make Relf wrong on zone read plays. Again, this is based on a single viewing, so I cannot say whether it was a matter of a superior athlete at end or tackle playing both Relf and the RB, or whether it was a schematic thing where the defense assigned a player to both runners. In theory the zone read always works when the QB makes the correct read, but the play was so unsuccessful against MSU that I wondered why they continued running it. Like an NFL defense, the LSU Tigers did not (usually) allow MSU to get away with slow developing running plays or sweeps to the outside.

And through all of this, MSU had some lucky moments on third downs. It could have been even worse. Even after three games it is difficult to accurately describe MSU's quality. They played perhaps the worst D1 team in Memphis in the first week and gave up 14 points and over 300 yards of total offense, not all in garbage time. Then they go on the road and lose to the defending national champs, and follow that up with a loss at home to an apparently legitimate top 5 team after a short week. I'd like to see them play a lower tier SEC team right now just to see if they struggle or not.

The ugly part of the game was MSU's blatant surrender at the end of the game. They were never more than two scored behind. Victory was unlikely, but you don't just quit when you have 3 timeouts and are only down 10. Auburn would never do that. LSU would never do that. There are many reasons why MSU is a perennial cellar dweller in the SEC West, and this sort of attitude is one of them. I expect Mullen to move on to greener pastures sooner rather than later, but if he can't be bothered to fight to the final whistle while coaching a ranked SEC team, why would any other school bother to hire him away? Is that the kind of coach you want on your sideline? Don't get me wrong, Mullen has done a lot of good things there and is a terrific coach, but this is to me a significant black mark.

The Shame of College Sports

The Atlantic has posted a voluminous article about the NCAA and college athletics. Though long, it is required reading on the topic. If it looks too long, read half of it. Read a quarter of it if you must, but do read some of it.

Suffice it to say, many of the present problems with college athletics predate the modern era of huge television contracts.

I have long been opposed to paying players, and this article tests that belief. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I think it is impossible to pay the players while keeping a college sports world that resembles the current one. There are major legal and institutional issues that make paying players within the current framework extremely complicated. The article highlights some of those issues that even I had not considered when it comes to athletes collectively negotiating with their schools to determine which players get what salary.

One solution would be to regress and embrace true amateurism: get rid of athletic scholarships, get the big money out of college athletics, and turn college football into glorified intramurals. Another solution would be to convert the college football programs into bona fide for profit businesses, either completely independent or under the organizational umbrella of their university.

Finally, I want to point out another elephant in the room: tax exempt status. For athletic departments, losing their tax exemption is a huge obstacle to major reform. If the athletic departments morph from their current state into true, for-profit club teams then they are likely to lose their tax exemption.

Changing the NBA Draft to Favor Weak Teams

Zach Lowe at the excellent Point Forward blog has some discussion of proposals to alter the NBA draft to give an even greater advantage to weaker teams. I don't like most of the proposals. Each of the 30 teams should get one of the first 30 picks. It's only fair, and as he notes few players outside even the first 10 or 15 picks become superstars. The first 5-10 picks are by far the most important part of the draft, and the draft lottery already allocates those picks to teams that missed the playoffs.

"Inevitable" Superconferences

I might end up looking foolish for going against the conventional wisdom here, but I am getting a little tired of hearing so many smart commentators suggest that 16 team superconferences are inevitable.

Simply put, the people actually making the decisions about conference expansion are not trying to create any particular arrangement of conferences. Each conference is out for its own selfish interests. They will not expand because it will make a playoff easier to create. They will not expand simply to get to an arbitrary number like 16, and they will not expand simply because other conferences do so.

Consider the SEC's behavior. Some weeks ago Mike Slive remarks off hand that “I could get to 16 (teams) in 15 minutes." But he hasn't so far, and all indications are that choosing a 14th team is not going to be easy. In fact, the SEC might choose to endure the irregularities of a 13 team schedule for a year rather than add a team in a hurry. Things can always change, but even the addition of A&M has hit a snag with threats of litigation from the Big 12 rank and file. I personally believe that A&M will ultimately join the SEC despite these hurdles, but for now it certainly looks like there is at least a chance that A&M could end up in limbo for a year, and they are certainly in limbo now, having left the Big 12 but lacking an invitation to another conference.

This is certainly a far cry from 16 teams in 15 minutes.

The SEC also presents evidence for another argument about conference realignment. The conferences are not expanding just to expand. They are trying to pry the marquee football programs out of the Big 12. The B1G has already taken Nebraska, and now the Pac 12 and SEC are fighting over the likes of Texas A&M, Oklahoma, and Texas. For conferences, expansion is about adding value.

Keep in mind that when expanding to 12 teams it is not as critical to add especially valuable teams, as the extra revenue from a conference championship game offsets the costs associated with adding members. This explains why the Pac 12 expanded despite not adding any marquee football names. Colorado and Utah are fine schools in their own right, but neither is on the same level (in football) as Nebraska, OU, or UT.

Compare expansion to 12 with expansion to 16. When expanding to 16, there is no added benefit like a conference championship game to offset the division of revenue into smaller pieces. Each addition will have to pull its own weight. As far as the SEC is concerned, A&M fits the bill. They are a wealthy institution that is a significant ratings draw in Texas. Although their recent football history is not great, they are a classic sleeping giant that the conference can confidently add. This is why the SEC wants Texas A&M: it adds value, plain and simple. The trick will be to find an appropriate 14th school. Two names jump out to me immediately: Virginia Tech and Florida State. Other names that have been batted around add considerably less value. Such schools include WVU, Missouri, and Clemson.

Consider that given the uncertainty surrounding the 14th member adding two additional members to go to 16 teams is even trickier. The real story here is not the emergence of superconferences, but a feeding frenzy caused by the destruction of the Big 12. The major conferences are essentially trying to pick up the cream of the Big 12 crop without getting too much chaff in the deal. If the SEC could get them, they would pick up Oklahoma and Texas in a heartbeat. So would the Pac 12. If they could do it without taking Texas Tech or Baylor in the deal so much the better.

Finally, an important consequence of this line of thinking is that there are no life rafts for good but not great schools that get lost in the shuffle. The B1G won't bail out Kansas or Iowa State if those schools are left out, just to be nice. They will stay at 12 teams before they add programs that are going to take money away from existing members without generating value in return, and the same goes for the SEC.

Big 12 Implosion Scenarios

Here are some possible endgames for the Big 12 as it currently stands:

1. Armageddon Averted:

The rank and file Big 12 members succeed through a combination of legal threats and exit fees to prevent Texas A&M from leaving. The Oklahoma schools decide to stay as well. The SEC, failing to agree on a 14th team, decides that expansion isn't worth it. The Big 12 continues with 10 members and possibly adds two more to go back to 12 in the next few years.

Almost certain not to happen. I honestly don't know if Texas A&M is too far along in the process to go back.

2. The Storm Blows Over

Texas A&M ultimately pays whatever exit fees and buyouts are required, the legal issues sort themselves out through a settlement or otherwise, and Texas A&M becomes the SEC's 14th member. Then, the SEC decides to add another member from the Big East or ACC. Probably West Virginia, but potentially Virginia Tech or Florida State. The Big 12 acts quickly and adds BYU as its 10th member, the Oklahoma schools agree to stay, and the conference is able to obtain similar television money.

This is the most likely scenario under which the Big 12 survives in something close to its current form.

3. The Texas and Scrubs Show #1

Texas A&M joins the SEC. The SEC does not add Missouri. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State join the Pac 12, bringing it to 14 teams, but the other schools stay to form a new age Southwest Conference with some combination of BYU, SMU, Houston, UTEP, and/or New Mexico.

4. The Texas and Scrubs Show #2

Texas A&M joins the SEC. The SEC does not add Missouri. Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and two other schools join the Pac 12 to form the Pac 16, creating the first "inevitable" superconference. Texas decides to create a new age Southwest Conference by adding some combination of BYU, SMU, Houston, UTEP, and/or New Mexico. The old Big 12 north schools decide to hang around because they do not have a good alternative. The Big East stands pat.

5. The Texas and Scrubs Show #3

Texas A&M joins the SEC. The SEC does not add Missouri. Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and two other schools join the Pac 12 to form the Pac 16, creating the first (inevitable) superconference. Three other schools join the Big East football schools in creating a new 12 member football conference as described in my previous post. Texas, rather than going independent, decides to lord over a new age Southwest Conference, adding some combination of BYU, SMU, Houston, UTEP, New Mexico, New Mexico State, Tulsa, and/or North Texas.

In this scenario, Texas could also go independent in football. Perhaps BYU could join this conference for its non-revenue sports as an independent in football as well.

6. Big 12 Explodes

Texas A&M joins the SEC. Four more schools break off and join the Pac 12. If it doesn't go along to the Pac 12, Texas goes independent and joins, say, the MWC in non-revenue sports. Three or five more schools join the Big East football schools. Perhaps Missouri ends up in the SEC. Some of these schools get left out in the cold: Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, or Baylor. The cold means joining the MWC, WAC, Sunbelt, or CUSA.

Note that in this scenario we still do not have the "inevitable" superconferences. The B1G is likely to stand pat unless Notre Dame wants to join, and the SEC might only go to 14. The new Football Big East would have 12 members, and the ACC would also stick with 12. The other conferences would watch and wait to see how the 14 and 16 team models play out at the highest levels of college football.

Splitting the Big East

The Big East is a hybrid conference in which only about half of the members participate in football. You can see from the chart the the football members are generally larger institutions. There will be 9 such members once TCU formally joins the conference for the 2012 season, and there are 8 basketball members, including Notre Dame.

The marriage of these two groups of schools has created arguably the preeminent basketball conference in America, and certainly the weakest BCS AQ conference in football. Last season UConn earned the Big East's automatic BCS bid despite winning only 8 games and barely cracking the top 25. Given the title of this post, this leads to the obvious question: why split up the greatest basketball conference in America in order to create what will certainly not be a top tier football conference?

Why? Because several Big 12 schools might suddenly become available (see below). The 9 football schools could break away and add some combination of Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Iowa State, Baylor, and possibly Texas Tech. Adding Kansas to a lineup that already includes Pitt, UConn, Syracuse, and Louisville will create a terrific basketball conference. The 8/9 current members have already earned an automatic BCS bid, so it stands to reason that such quality additions as the schools listed would be able to continue with that benefit.

Why break away at all? To create a proper, relatively homogeneous 12-14 member football conference that plays a championship game and generally operates much like the other major conferences. Such a conference could potentially earn a lucrative new media deal, which would depend on the particulars of the current Big East agreement. I do not know how television revenue from the football side is split, but presumably the basketball only members do not receive these funds, and presumably the media contract specifies what happens when and if the football members leave as a group, and what happens when new members join the conference. Either way, the conference is nearing the end of its current television contract, so the pending implosion of the Big 12 could not have come at a better time.

I will briefly go over the possible scenarios for Big 12 armageddon in my next post.

Introduction

This is to be a blog primarily about sports and secondarily about other topics that I find interesting. I do not have great plans or ambitions for this blog at the present time. It is mostly a place for me to organize my thoughts that is not a message board or comment thread.